In Bed with the Tudors: The Sex Lives of a Dynasty from Elizabeth of York to Elizabeth I (24 page)

A number of Henry’s actions in 1537 show him to be mindful of the impending arrival’s importance in the continuation of the dynasty. Two years earlier, under the patronage of Anne Boleyn, German artist Hans Holbein had become the court’s official painter; now Henry commissioned him to create a huge mural to decorate the newly completed Whitehall complex. What had been Wolsey’s old York Place now became an impressive, regal complex along the European lines of Richmond Palace, after over £10 million had been spent designing new apartments, tilt-yard, indoor bowling green, tennis courts and cock fighting pit. Hanging in the privy chamber, the mural measured 3 metres by 4 and depicted Henry’s parents standing behind him and Jane, flanking a marble plinth, whose inscription compared the king most favourably with his father: ‘how difficult the debate, the question, the issue of whether the father or son be the superior. Each of them has triumphed. The first got the better of his enemies … the son, born to still greater things … with him on the throne the truth of God has begun to receive due reverence.’
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Henry’s depiction appears to answer his difficult debate. His life-size image, twice as wide as his father who appears a pale shadow behind him, overwhelmed some onlookers who were seen to tremble in its presence; the unusual pose, facing front with legs open, in deliberately heroic style, was effective propaganda for an ageing, obese and increasingly ill king. His eyes stare out directly to meet those of the viewer, as if challenging them to question or defy him. The mural was destroyed in the 1698 fire that razed all but the banqueting house to the ground but many copies had already been made.

During the 1530s, Henry also undertook a series of alterations at Hampton Court, which he had received as a ‘gift’ from the increasingly desperate Wolsey in 1529. Thousands of pages of building accounts survive for the period, detailing the three main phases of development that reworked Wolsey’s already impressive house into the most imposing of Henry’s surviving palaces. The royal apartments, stacked up on several floors, were abandoned in favour of a pair of matching lodgings for the king and queen, all on the same floor, sharing a grand staircase that connected with the privy gardens. This marked a significant shift away from the publicity of the old chambers, which were now used entirely for formal business, whilst the new rooms allowed for greater privacy. An impressive king’s lock, symbolic of the increased distancing between royalty and the court, was transported between houses on progress and always used for the king’s bedchamber. There was a much stricter access policy than in the old days, when smaller wheeled beds were used for gentleman attendants to sleep in the king’s own room at night: now they needed permission to enter. Jane was also intended to benefit from the private gallery overlooking the Thames and gardens, built in 1537 to connect her accommodation with that of the new royal nursery.

The pregnancy was officially announced at the beginning of April and, that May, Jane appeared at Hampton Court in an open-laced gown to announce her quickening. Special Masses were said at St Paul’s and the already delayed plans for a summer coronation were again put on hold. The queen passed a quiet summer at Hampton Court as the plague raged through London. Attended by the royal physicians, she was exhibiting a large belly by mid-July, her gown unlaced to the full. On 16 September she took to her chambers, which had been intended for Anne Boleyn, their interlaced initials of H and A hurriedly adapted for the new queen. Henry remained at nearby Esher, for fear of plague being brought to Hampton, awaiting the arrival of messengers. Jane’s bed would have followed her into confinement, with its wooden roundel bearing her coat of arms, to ensure her comfort before and after the delivery. Three weeks after retiring, her labour pains began. Unusually, despite having her waiting women present, she was also attended by Henry’s male doctors, including the most famous Sir William Butts, which is perhaps indicative of the importance the king placed upon this birth and his certainty of the child’s gender. Yet this was little surprise, as the vociferous and numerous prophets of the Tudor era would always proclaim the imminent arrival of a male heir. Mary and Elizabeth were boys until they arrived and proved the predictions wrong. Perhaps at the age of forty-six, the presence of male physicians said more about his increasing desperation for a healthy heir that would survive infancy. For this, he was prepared to overturn the usual rules; it indicated a significant shift towards the later very public accouchements of seventeenth-century queens.

Jane endured a long, hard ordeal before her son arrived at two in the morning on Friday 12 October, the eve of St Edward’s day. Later rumours that a Caesarian had been performed and that Henry was forced to choose between mother and child are unfounded, despite their perpetration in places ranging from popular ballads to Papal documents. Such procedures were not practised in England at the time; living foetuses were removed surgically but only from dead or dying mothers: the first recorded maternal survival following such a procedure was in Switzerland in the 1580s. Following the birth, Jane was weak but appeared to be recovering well and Henry rode to Hampton Court delirious with joy. Hugh Latimer wrote that there was no less rejoicing at his arrival than that of John the Baptist and that God had ‘overcome all our illness with his exceeding goodness’.
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Pamphleteer Richard Morison felt a ‘wonderful force, an inerrable strength of gladness’, making his heart ‘leap’ for joy, his blood pump faster and filling him with the desire ‘much lighter to run’.
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When the news reached the city, the Tower shot off 2,000 rounds of ammunition and impromptu celebrations broke out: banquets were held, banners and garlands hung, bells rung, torches lit, wine ran freely and parties filled the streets. It was the first surviving male heir to be born in England since Henry himself in 1491 and the last until Charles II in May 1630.

The following Monday, Prince Edward was christened in the chapel at Hampton Court. The renovations to Wolsey’s old chapel had been completed only two years before; the hammer-beam ceilings, painted blue, decorated with angels and inlaid with gold stars, still recognisable today, were fresh and new overhead but a special temporary screen had been set up to hide the child from prying eyes and create a sense of secrecy about the ritual. A fire pan of perfumed coals filled the air and a special basin had been set aside to wash the child if necessary. Torch bearers led the way before the procession of dignitaries, two by two. Little Elizabeth, aged four, carried the chrism and the Earl of Essex carried the salt, traditionally used in the Catholic ritual of placing a pinch in the infant’s mouth. The baby, dressed in a white gown, was brought in under a canopy carried by six gentlemen of the privy chamber, surrounded by bearers of burning wax tapers; the twenty-one-year-old Lady Mary followed, in the role of godmother. The company took spices, wafers and wine and gifts were given of silver and gilt pots and bowls before they departed to the sound of trumpets. Anne Bassett, one of Jane’s new waiting women who had been present during her lying-in and confinement, wore a specially commissioned dress of black velvet ‘turned up with yellow satin’ which was hurriedly worked on to be ready on time. Edward was then returned to his parents to be blessed; Jane sitting upright in bed, dressed in red velvet lined with ermine and Henry later distributing ‘great largess’.
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Jane seemed to be recovering well and plans were being made for her churching: Anne Bassett was to have a new satin gown. However, things were about to dramatically change for the queen.

A surviving letter addressed to Cromwell, describing Jane’s last days, was signed by six doctors who attended her, including William Butts, Henry’s leading physician, and George Owen, who became Edward’s chief doctor. It describes how her delivery had lasted two days and three nights and that she had seemed well immediately after the birth. Within days, though, she worsened and a procession at St Paul’s was made to pray for her health, as one had while she was in labour, after which she seemed to rally. Five days later though, the doctors were concerned again: ‘all this nyght she hath bene very syck’, worsening rather than improving. Rumours flew about that she was already dead. On 24 October the Earl of Rutland wrote to Cromwell that the queen had suffered ‘an natural laxe’, probably a heavy bleed, after being very sick all night. Her confessor was with her in the morning, preparing to administer the final rites of extreme unction. Sir Thomas Palmer hoped that ‘if good prayers can save her, she is not like to die for never lady was so much plained [complained] with every man, rich and poor’. Others, though, saw the imminence of the threat. Norfolk, recently prominent at Edward’s christening, wrote ‘there is no likelihood of her life … I fear she shall not be on lyve at the tyme ye shall read this’ and urged Cromwell to ‘be here tomorrow early to comfort our good master’.
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Jane’s end was sudden. The same day, Henry VIII wrote to Francis I of the joy of his son’s birth coupled with the ‘bitterness of the death of her who has brought me this happiness’. Yet Henry was not even there: he continued to delay his departure from Esher, citing the plague as an excuse; it is uncertain whether he managed to reach Jane’s side as she died, or if he even attempted to. Chris Skidmore places him there at eight in the evening, four hours before her death.
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Cromwell attributed her demise to ‘the neglect of those about her who suffered her to take cold and eat such things as her fantasy in sickness called for’, and later sensational rumours abroad suggested Henry was damned for having caused Jane’s limbs to be stretched and broken to allow the child to emerge. Like the caesarean accusations, this certainly was untrue, although Cromwell may have been partly correct regarding the apportion of blame. Jane’s death was probably caused by ignorance rather than neglect. With no understanding of the benefits of hand washing, germs easily entered the mother’s bloodstream, causing fatal results. Neither was there any co-ordinated system of separating and delivering clean water and disposing of waste; in London all water was recycled through Thames, thus tainted by sewage and decay. Hampton Court was exceptional in having water brought in along lead pipes from springs three miles away but it was not enough to save Jane. With no idea that hygiene was significant, amoebic dysentery, tape-worms, whip-worms and bore-worms must have been common. There would have been occasions when the dirty hands of well-meaning midwives may have cost many maternal lives, yet Jane was attended by male doctors rather than the traditional female midwives with their wealth of practical experience. Puerperal fever has traditionally been held responsible for her demise, although descriptions of her end have given rise to recent theories that part of the placenta had been left in Jane’s womb, leading to serious haemorrhaging. Midwives would routinely inspect the placenta for any ruptures but less experienced practitioners might have overlooked or misdiagnosed this essential safeguard. With the majority of births of all classes still attended by women, it is impossible to speculate on a male doctor’s experience of placentas in the 1530s. The queen’s untimely death may be attributable to the imbalance of gender – and therefore gynaecological knowledge – in the birth chamber.

Henry was upset but sanguine, his sorrow offset by the continuing health of his son. Sir John Wallop reported on 3 November that the ‘king was in good health and merry as a widower may be’.
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At the time of Jane’s funeral almost a week later, he retired to a ‘solitary place to pass his sorrows’ whilst her body was interred at Windsor. A surviving account details the preparations. She had been embalmed by a wax-chandler, who had removed her entrails, which were interred in the chapel, and prepared her body with ‘searing, balming, spicing and trammelling in cloth’ before the plumber soldered her in lead. She was conveyed to Windsor in a hearse surrounded by twenty-one tapers, whilst her ladies left off their colourful clothes and ‘rich apparel’ and wore mourning clothes with ‘white kerchers hanging over their heads and shoulders’, held Masses at the hearse and watched over it day and night. The chapel was prepared in advance, along with all the chambers leading to it, hung with black cloth and ‘images’. On Monday 12 November, 200 poor men wearing the queen’s badge lined the route with their torches while the solemn procession passed into the castle walls and on to the chapel for the funeral. Following the internment, the mourners were ‘sumptuously provided for’ in the castle, with all being concluded by midday.
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Edward, on the other hand, was thriving and according to Cromwell was ‘sucketh like a child of his puissance (power)’.
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Initially he stayed at the new nursery that had been built to receive him at Hampton Court, connected, sadly now, by a corridor to the queen’s empty chambers. An extra wash house and kitchen had been built at the palace to cater for his needs and ensure there was no cross-contamination from the daily court business. Strict guidelines governed the roles of those in his household, forbidding any under the degree of knight from entering and barring all serving boys and dogs as naturally clumsy and prone to infection. Henry regularly checked the list of employees. All food was tested before being given to the prince and his clothes were washed, brushed, tested and tried on before being worn; new clothes were to be washed and perfumed before use and dried by the fire. Walls, floors and ceilings were also washed down several times a day for fear of infection and those in direct contact with the little prince were required to be scrupulously clean. The precautions seemed to work. At New Year, the thriving boy received gifts of pots and cups of gilt plate totalling 616 ounces and, soon after, a new nursery was established for him at Richmond. Every indication suggested he would be a strong, long-lived boy, a powerful future King of England.